


See how the people here live now

by dimtraces



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 05:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: Maul is cut down by Kenobi’s blade for the second time, and then he wakes up, twenty years ago. Another chance to bring down Sidious, but Maul’s decision to first seek out his old apprentice does not quite go to plan.





	See how the people here live now

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Nothing explicit, but there is an offhand mention of what would be major character death in another story, vaguely implied torture, and a mention of Savage's backstory of brainwashing/forced magical body change/forced fratricide as usual.

“What have you done to my brother?!” The other nightbrother is short and wiry, almost delicate, and he’s trembling, not just because of the cold of this wretched, badly insulated stolen ship on what must be his first experience of spaceflight. He’s having trouble making direct eye contact—you do not challenge the Elders like this, Maul remembers being told once, and he knows by the weight in his bones that he looks truly ancient—but it is neither chill nor fear that makes the boy shake and ball his fists. “What did you say to him!?” A quiet hiss, so as not to wake Savage, who’s curled up on the single berth after a long argument and finally shuddered himself to sleep, and Maul pulls the blanket over a thin yellow shoulder. Feral—the _rival_ _brother_ —watches. He’s protective. He’s angry.

He’s livid, and his untrained force presence seeks its grasp on Maul’s neck. It’s batted aside easily, but with a little training… this might not be a disaster, even though it was not the plan to bring him along, when Maul awoke somewhere in the early years of the Clone Wars.

+

 _(Sand still clogged his prosthetic legs. Incongruous ash, all over his body, and no shirt. The heat of the lightsaber tearing his ribcage, and the final touch of Kenobi, he remembered as clearly as a dream, but there was no scar. No wound. No sign of the komrk-class fighter Maul had left hidden in the Tatooine wastes when he set out to die by the hand of his oldest enemy. In the world where he had opened his eyes, there was no knowledge of the Empire, he realized after he let the word slip to the duros whose ship he commandeered. No Empire; nothing but troops wearing the old armor of clone soldiers on the news, fighting campaigns he didn’t recognize, he grasped once he’d heard the date, because they were_ too early _. No Empire. Master had not won yet._

_The how, the why of Maul’s return to this time did not matter. Sidious hadn’t won. He never would. Not without a fight. Maul laughed, giddy, utterly terrifying his unwilling passenger so much the duros decided to take her chances and attack him. Maul killed her without even looking. He was consumed by his luck._

_He had another chance yet to tear down his former Master._

_He then decided: he should have an ally by his side, when he wrought his revenge. When he enacted his plan for the total annihilation of the Sith in general and one man in particular. Someone to trust. An_ ally _: it was a lie, utterly transparent the second he thought it. He did not want an ally. He had lived a long enough life now to admit he was lonely. In what was currently the future, he had taken an apprentice and tried for another, because he believed that was all there was, but—here, now, it was years before Mandalore. Today, in this time, somewhere, Maul’s brother lived. He lived._

Savage _was_ alive.

_Utter joy, quickly tempered. Sidious must never learn of Savage’s existence, his importance to Maul. He would kill him. Again. Maul couldn’t seek out his brother, ever. He was as alone as before—he shouldn’t—but Savage had entered the war without Maul’s interference the last time, he argued to himself, and even if there could be no contact, Maul had to make sure his brother was safe. He should, at least, have a look._

_The search was quick: his young self was on Lotho Minor, still, and he gave it mercy. That narrowed down Savage’s possible whereabouts, since he’d had two Masters before Maul._

_Dooku, caught unawares relaxing in his bed on Serenno, only proved a slight challenge to subdue. He’d never heard of Savage—had not yet chosen to acquire him—that much was clear after one question, but Maul remembered the flinch of his apprentice during the first bout of training, the sheer wonder when Maul actually deigned to explain how to do things, and he made the end last.)_

+

The other nightbrother has no place yet in any plan, but all good plans are malleable. After all, Maul came to Dathomir for a single look at Savage. He stole his way into the right village—not the one settlement on the planet that he’d visited before its future destruction, it turned out, but something small and hidden that took days to locate—and he stood by the hut’s door for minutes, unnoticed and sightless, too entranced by feeling the warmth of his brother’s presence for the first time in two decades. Feeling the similarities. The differences: only now it’s gone, now that it hasn’t yet happened and never will, does Maul truly know his brother’s pain. His loneliness and terror and disorientation. His viscid guilt. The sickly traces of Talzin’s magic lingering on his body. In his mind.

He’d switched plans immediately. No matter the danger, he could not allow Savage to stay, not when he knows what will be done to him. Savage was reluctant at first, and Maul too focused on his brother to notice the stowaway before takeoff. Now, Feral is with them, but it does not matter. They will not turn back.

Besides… there’s no use for Feral yet, but it’s obvious that he is strong. Slippery. Loved. Loving.

Insubordinate.

“You ordered him to follow you outside, and then you talked, and—he won’t look at me,” Feral yells, and then, with a worried glance at still-sleeping Savage, reins himself in. That’s who matters. His worry outweighs all fear of Maul or respect for the elderly, it appears, or Maul’s posture, sprawled heavily on the floor with old creaking joints, has made him seem harmless. “He only said he would leave with you, alone, that it would be better and I would be safe, and I had to sneak after you! That’s not like my brother. He would never leave me with the witches. He wouldn’t leave home at all, but you made him terrified. What did you do to him!?”

“I convinced him of who I am. Is that so hard to believe?”

It is, actually, Maul silently concedes. Gaining Savage’s trust was harder than expected; and making him leave worse, Savage’s bones bound to the marshes of his home in a way impossible to predict when Maul only knew him after his roots were ravaged and torn. The words were hard to find. Maul’s instinct was for honesty with his brother, but he could not risk destroying the warmth of his presence. Even the carefully edited version of Savage’s future enslavement had shaken him visibly, and now, Feral is angry and suspicious.

“You didn’t recognize me at all,” the boy hisses, pale eyes narrowed. “You were surprised. If you are who you say you are. If you are from the future, if in that time you know Savage, if you’re truly our brother…”

He trails off, but the challenge is clear: _If you know him, you should know my face, because we are never apart._ When Maul had finally torn his eyes away and spoken a greeting, Savage moved subconsciously, instinctively, to put himself between the boy and Maul. Between his little brother, his only brother, and a _threat_. Maul recognizes the feeling as jealousy, and it makes his tongue cruel.

Makes it careless.

“In the future I have come back to prevent, Feral, they made him kill you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
